The Lady is a Tramp
by MaggieMerc
Summary: Angie's got suspicions on what Peggy does for a living and she's determined to protect her at all costs…to other people. It's not like she's crazy and about to risk her life for a dame that's more hot and cold than the plumbing on the third floor of the Griffith Hotel.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **I actually waffled a bit on this plot, but it accidentally spun out of the original plan for the plot and then I realized how I could address what was striking me as troublesome about it and I'm going to. Feedback—constructive, elated or appalled—is appreciated and greatly desired.

**Chapter One**

The big dumb ape her boss calls cook stubs his toe and just goes "splat" right into the griddle. His hand gets burned so bad the other waitress says she's gonna be sick and the boss kicks all the customers out with an apology and a weak smile and Angie gets clean up duty and closing duty because the other girl is as green as their uniforms and the boss wears a **tie** and no fella in a tie is gonna sack up the trash or wipe down the griddle. No siree.

Angie glances at the entrance more than she maybe should while she cleans up. She hadn't seen Peggy at breakfast that morning and was kind of hoping—as stupid as it maybe was—that she'd stop by for a slice of pie after work. Angie's even left the slice out and the boss has already left for the night so she could let Peggy in and everything.

She gets all these pictures of how it'd be. Her cleaning and gabbing and Peggy sitting on the stool by the window, framed in the light of the city, legs crossed at the knee and lips pursed in thought as she considers the slice of pie and whether or not it "really is too large for just one person Angie."

Then maybe Peggy'd smile at her.

Gosh golly Peggy has a nice smile. The kind that just warms a girl up from toe to top.

Angie doubles down on scrubbing the griddle because, let's face it, girls aren't supposed to get all warm thinking about other girls' smiles. Maybe when they're still, you know, girls, and their ma does their hair in braids and kisses them on the top of the head and tells 'em they're beautiful.

But not when they're firmly in adulthood and living on their own with all those apron strings long ago snipped and the close bosom buddy girlfriend feelings reserved for doing each other's nails before a date with a big galunk of a guy.

She cleans the griddle until she can almost see her face in it and Peggy still doesn't show. Same after she mops. And after she wipes down every countertop.

She leaves the pie alone while she sacks up the trash.

So Peggy isn't gonna darken her door and split a piece of cherry pie with her. Who cares! She'll finish her work and finish her pie and still be home by curfew.

Unlike some ladies who can't even bother to talk to their friends on a regular basis.

Outside the city's cold but **muggy**. The fog's rolled in and everything is damp, but not wet enough that she'll be able to use her umbrella on her walk to the train. It's clingy like a bed date and makes Angie shiver.

There's enough water to make nasty little puddles that she has to side step to keep from ruining her company issues shoes.

She's busy eyeing the alley way puddles on her way to the trash so she almost misses the figure lurking in the shadows like a creep.

Almost.

Only Angie's no fool. She was raised up wise and when she realizes there's somebody just **standing** there she hefts her bag of trash over her shoulder like a weapon and tells 'em to "come on out" in what she hopes to hell is a forceful sounding way.

But the figure, instead of stepping out, just kind of slumps. Sliding down the wall and hiting the ground like a sack of potatoes.

The light catches 'em once they hit the ground and Angie squints trying to figure out if she can— "English?"

The nickname she saddled Peggy with just slips out. Not her actual name, which Angie has used on more than one occasion, but the nickname she likes to lay out when she's thinking too much about Peggy's smile and needs to put up a little distance.

Peggy doesn't smile. Probably because she's white as a sheet and only about half conscious.

Angie creeps closer and watches the shifty way Peggy breathes. Kind of like when her little sister got the flu back in '28 and her last breath just rattled out.

She drops the trash on the other side of Peggy, shielding the both of them a little from the street, and she reaches out to touch her face.

Cool. Clammy. But warm enough to be alive still. "Peggy," she whispers curiously.

Dark eyes flutter open, but they're cloudy with confusion. "Angie," she finally whispers. Peggy's voice is thick.

She cups Peggy's face like her own cold hands can transfer a little warmth. "Hey," she says, and she manages to stop herself from adding a "kiddo," because she's pretty sure Peggy's older and smarter and usually wiser than her. "You know the last guy who used the backdoor got hit upside his backdoor with a broom."

Peggy sort of smiles and laughs, but then it goes into a little bit of a wheeze. So Angie leans back on her heels so the light over her shoulder can better illuminate Peggy. She almost misses it.

It's so damp out that at first glance it just looks like Peggy got to close to a taxi when it ran through a puddle.

But it's so **wet**. Carefully Angie reaches out and touches the wet spot on the back of Peggy's ear and recoils when her fingers touch something red, tack and unmistakably **bloody**.

She hunches down and carefully tilts Peggy's head and— "You're hurt!"

Peggy pats her hand. "I bumped my head at work. I think…" she sighs, "it might be more severe than I originally thought."

"You think? You must have bled down twenty blocks!"

She smirked. "Twenty-two."

Angie is unimpressed. "Is now really the time to be crackin' wise?"

The smirk falls away. "I suppose not."

"Come on, let's get you inside and call a hospital."

She reaches for Peggy's arm to pull her up but Peggy pulls back. "I—"

"You what?"

"I can't afford a doctor."

Angie stares. "What're they paying you in down at the phone company? Tea and crumpets?"

"Brandy and—" She winces. "Right. No jokes. Inappropriate time. I did—I did call someone. To help."

"And you thought you'd wait for 'em in the alleyway outside my work?"

"I'd rather hoped to make it inside. I just got…waylaid."

"Because you got your clock cleaned! How the heck does that even happen at a phone company?"

"Heavy doors."

"Peggy."

Peggy looks earnest, which isn't a thing Peggy does often, and the few times Angie's seen her do it its kind of like watching that wolf all dressed up in granny's clothes. But this time, this time she looks earnest and it feels genuine. Like she doesn't just want, but she needs Angie, and only Angie, to believe her.

"I didn't think it was as bad as this when I left."

Angie sighs. "Any idea how long until they get here?"

Peggy looks down at her watch, the face rotated around to the inside of her wrist, and reads the time. "He's always been very punctual. So I would imagine any moment—"

Bright lights of a fancy car flash on the both of them. Peggy shields her eyes and hisses in annoyance and Angie stands up, reaching for the half-forgotten trash bag like she's gonna throw it at the car, but Peggy's hand on her bare ankle stops her.

"It's all right," she says. "That's my friend."

####

The friend turns out to be the Tall, Dark and British that Peggy's always chatting with and acting like people don't notice. Which—okay maybe most people don't. Maybe it's just Angie.

He notices her too, but the recognition is faint, and while polite, he mostly just ignores her while he helps Peggy.

There's talk on whether she should be transported elsewhere and then whatever they're planning seems to stop being the plan when they both remember Angie's standing there awkwardly clutching her bag of trash like an old lady with her purse.

"If she's amenable, perhaps you can patch me up and Angie can escort me home," she says, and Peggy looks at Angie, but without any of the pleading and yearning from before.

There's a definite patsy sitting there in this threesome and Angie has a good idea who it is. But she nods anyways and doesn't bother hiding any of her shock and awe. "Sure, I mean if you think you'll be okay. I had a cousin one time who didn't get a cut checked out on his leg and now," she makes a cracking noise in the side of her mouth, "no leg."

Tall, Dark and British smiles congenially. "I assure you Ms. Carter will retain the use of all her faculties. And," he says as an after thought, "her leg."

They move Peggy to the back of his spacious car and Tall, Dark and British has her hold a light so he can examine the cut, which is bloody and long but not so bad under the light. He cleans it and quickly stitches it like he's darning a pair of pants and Peggy doesn't even flinch.

Then he purses his pouty manly lips. "And your chest?"

Angie's eyes must bug out of her head ten feet and she half expects one of them to remark on how she looks like a Looney Tune. But Tall, Dark and British is devoted to his patient and his patient is devoted to sighing, "It's not so bad."

"You've clearly harmed your ribs or you wouldn't be wheezing like an asthmatic."

Peggy glances at Angie. "The door hit my…chest."

She's wide eyed.

"It's a very large door. With a…knob."

"Like a fist," Tall, Dark and British mutters.

Peggy is very perfunctory with the unbuttoning of her shirt, and it gives both Angie and Peggy's "colleague" access to all kinds of skin and underthings that usually require face to face meals first.

She tries not to flush and pays lip service to finishing up and clocking out while they work. She thinks she hears light laughter on her way back to the diner, but she chooses to think she imagined it.

####

Tall, Dark and British insists on driving them home and he holds the door open so Angie can climb into the backseat of a car that costs more than her yearly rent.

"How's a guy like you afford a car like this," she asks him—staring hard at the rearview mirror.

He stares back and she can only see his eyes, hard and cool, in the reflection. "It's not my car."

"Whose is it?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"My friend shows up bleeding on my doorstep, so I'm a little curious." Her "friend" is currently passed out beside her and the weight of her head on Angie's shoulder is real nice.

"You're concern is noted."

And so is his lack of concern.

Peggy sighs in her sleep and Angie resists the real dumb urge to brush the hair off her face so she can get a better look at her.

"What'd you give her," she instead asks softly. "Drink?"

Tall, Dark and British laughs in that demure Brit way. "Ms. Carter's tolerance is far better than yours or mine." Then he goes real tender. "And she really shouldn't have anything with that lump forming on her head."

"She's gonna feel like a horse kicked her in the morning."

"She will."

"And she got hurt—"

"She was rushing a file to the other side of the office. The door stopped her."

It's the same as Peggy's story and, as stories go, it's a pretty good one. Especially for ladies who don't want people asking questions. No one ever wants to know more than that it was a door.

Or some stairs.

Or a clumsy baby with a meaty little fist.

But Angie doesn't really believe it. Not when it was Phyllis in second grade or Doris who's lips tasted like cigarettes. And not when she's seen Peggy with bruises and cuts before. Not when she's seen her talking discreetly with this guy who drives someone else's expensive car and patches Peggy up like he's been doing it all their lives.

"She in trouble," she asks, and she knows Tall, Dark and British catches her drift. She's never exactly been in their world but she's seen enough of it to know how to talk.

He's got the steel eyed look again, tempered by just enough tenderness to put most folks off the trail. "I assure you Ms. Martinelli, she's not."

Angie doesn't believe him, because she isn't the patsy he and Peggy seem to think she is, and she takes Peggy's hand in hers and squeezes it.

Peggy doesn't mumble, but her breath is hot on Angie's neck.

####

They get to the hotel and Tall, Dark and British offers to help take Peggy upstairs. Angie levels a good glare at him, "She doesn't talk much about her home life does she?"

"No," he squeaks.

"No guys above the first floor. Especially not a friend of pimps patching up the girls."

He flusters and tries to hurriedly dissuade her of her idea, but Angie's pretty much well and truly done with the guy and ignores him. She leans all of Peggy's weight onto her shoulder with a wheeze and pinches her as they walk towards the entrance.

"I need you to wake up English. We got a mission."

Behind them Tall, Dark and British calls her name. She shoots him the bird without looking.

Peggy shakes her head and slowly opens her eyes after. Her whole head lolls back as she looks towards Tall, Dark and British and his car and what she hopes is his dumb face and then back towards Angie. "What happened?"

"Your 'friend' brought us home. Now you got to pretend you're a-okay so we can make it up the stairs."

Peggy half salutes and they march towards the entrance, Peggy giggling loudly like Angie's **never** heard her giggle. It's all…girlish. The kind of girlish they usually roll their eyes at when they hear it tinkling around them at breakfast.

Ms. Fry stops them half way up. "You're home later than usual," she says.

She glances at the clock at the top of the stairs.

Ten past the hour. They broke curfew.

Angie opens her mouth to spin God know's what, but Peggy is faster and tells a tale of stuck trains and evil taxi drivers and dirty men that chase them home.

It's the dumbest story but Peggy spins it like one of those breathless dolls on the radio and Miriam Fry listens with rapt fascination, nodding and being horrified at all the right moments. When she sends them upstairs she's feeling sorry for **them** and hopes they both can sleep after such a harrowing night.

"Just carry that one up your sleeve," Angie mutters out the side of her mouth.

"For a rainy day," Peggy agrees.

"Got any more of 'em? We could make a fortune selling them to girls on the hall."

Peggy smiles sleepily. "I'll see what I can do."

On their floor Peggy becomes completely useless again and Angie has to prop her up against her own door and search her for keys.

Peggy stops her with a grip like a vice on her wrist and produces the keys from her pocket, dangling them in front of Angie. "Looking for these," she asks coyly, and it occurs to Angie that her friend might actually be drunk.

Or she just gets flirty when they knock her in the head.

She snatches the keys out of Peggy's hand and holds her up with a hand around her waist while she uses the other to open the door.

Peggy's arms find their way around Angie's shoulders and its just…

Its a hug.

Peggy Carter is hugging her and smelling like garbage and antiseptic and that perfume that's always wafting out of her room and Angie almost—almost—doesn't want to open the door.

But she does and Peggy steps back into the shadows of her room and as playful as she's been it's all gone once she steps over that threshold.

"Thank you Angie." She's serious again.

So Angie tries not to be. Even as much as she wants to follow her into that room and keep her sake and send her back on the first boat to England if it will stop whatever's happening. "Take it easy English," she says with a crooked grin.

She tosses the keys at Peggy's chest and Peggy catches them without blinking and then she shuts the door on Angie and Angie likes to think she's as confused and wrecked by the night as she is.

####

It's only after she's cleaned up and in bed and staring at the light of a street lamp splashed across the ceiling that Angie remembers the pie still sitting on the counter back at work.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Peggy laughs off what happened and assures Angie she's fine and she **seems** to think that Angie's just gonna forget about it.

Things, for Peggy, go back to normal. She comes in for dinner and sometimes breakfast and sometimes lunch and she stops by to ask for a cup of sugar or invite Angie over for tea and at night Angie stares at her ceiling and wonders if maybe it was some crazy dream she had.

But a week and a half later Tall, Dark and British sits in the booth behind Peggy and says, "Hello Ms. Martinelli" when she pours him a cup of coffee and Angie knows it **isn't** a dream.

He's shifty and ashamed.

She glares hard.

Peggy leaves to go to the bathroom.

"I'm not what you think I am," he assures her in a low voice.

"Excuse me if I don't believe you."

"I—" He catches himself. It's like he wants to prove he's a good man. But a fella shouldn't have to work to prove it. He should just be. Angie is wise enough to know this guy ain't. Not if he's using Peggy.

She raises and eyebrow and waits for him to finish.

But he flushes and flusters. "You're misunderstanding the other night."

She sets her coffee pot down on the table by his cup and leans in, one hand on her hip and the other holding the pot so tight. "You're just the chauffeur right? Ferrying her around to do some other guy's work."

He presses his fingers into the laminate and she can see the red under fingernails pressed too tightly to the table.

"What's your cut," she asks.

His head snaps around. "It isn't like that."

"Yeah," she positive, "it is."

"Everything all right?" Peggy's back and looking confused and curious.

Angie smiles and says they're "swell" and Tall, Dark and British swallows and nods.

She goes back to work and the two of them face opposite directions and talk while barely moving their mouths.

A little later he collects his things and leaves, stopping at the door to stare hard at Angie. She stares hard back. Never breaking eye contact as she pours a cup of coffee.

Peggy's still sitting in her booth. Her mouth is small and tight in a frown. It dissolves when she notices Angie watching her and she looks away.

But it returns and moves. Changing her face until her eyes are narrow with bitter anger and she's taunt like wire.

She gets up when she thinks Angie's busy with another table and Angie has to stop and watch her walk out. Rigid with fury.

That's how, a week and a half after Peggy Carter shows up at the automat half dead, Angie Martinelli resolves to investigate, and if need be clean some dirty pimp's dirty clock.

####

She figures the first thing she's gotta do if she's gonna help is figure out what the hell actually happened to Peggy on the night she slumped her way into the alley. Angie'd been too shy to pay attention when Tall, Dark and British was patching Peggy up so she has no idea how she was actually hurt or what did the hurtin'.

The only thing she knows for sure is it wasn't a door.

Peggy doesn't comment when she sees Angie get into an embarrassingly heated conversation with a twelve year old paper boy outside the automat.

Though she definitely sees her start and then smile when the kid kicks her in the shin.

"All right," she asks when Angie limps back inside.

"Kid kicks like a mule."

"Lot of experience with those?"

"Loads of 'em past Atlantic Avenue. You didn't know?"

"I don't find my way that deep into Brooklyn often."

"You're pullin' my leg."

"I wish I were."

"Even Coney Island?"

She shakes her head.

"You don't know what you're missing."

"And you're not the first person to tell me as much." She goes melancholic after she says it. The way she gets when there's big post-war news in the paper or the Captain America Hour has a rare good bit.

She wants to ask if Peggy's okay, but she knows her answer and knows it's not worth either of their time.

Instead she squeezes her shoulder as she walks by. "Hang in there, English. You'll get there one day."

"That an invitation," she fires back.

It's a joke, but there's heat in her words and Angie hopes Peggy can't see her freeze. Can't feel her hand go rigid on her shoulder. She swallows. "You want it to be?"

Peggy looks over her shoulder, her dark eyes falling briefly on Angie's hand before pegging her with a stare that'll haunt a shameful night or two. But then she smiles and the heat is gone and it really is just a joke.

Nothing sincere.

It rarely is with Peggy Carter.

But that's a-okay for Angie. Because oh those little moments of belly-warming and knee-weakening sincerity.

####

Her paperboy drops off a week and a half of newspapers at the Griffith in a ruck sack big enough that Sarah Trellis asks if there's a body in it.

She almost tells her it's her boyfriend's just to see Trellis fume but doesn't. Knowing that cow she'd want to see inside and the whole hotel'd start worrying about Angie hoardin' papers like that crazy old man that got crushed under twenty years of cat hair and the New York Times.

The first thing she learns, ensconced in her room and armed with a bright light and a big pot of coffee, is that combing through a week and a half of papers for one of the largest cities in the world is boring. Back-aching and mind-numbingly boring. She can only go for twenty minutes at a time before she's pacing in her room and stretching like an alley cat.

The second thing she learns is that peering at newspaper print for hours on end is a pain on the eyes. So she stops and opens the window wide and leans out and stares at the skyline instead.

The sun's setting and the sky is a red and it hits the glass of all the buildings on the horizon and when a train, a truck or even a big breeze rattles those windows its like that skyline's on fire.

It's a pretty sight and Angie rests her hand on her fist and sighs. It sounds wistful and she thinks she better remember that exact sigh for the next audition.

The window to her right scrapes open and Peggy sticks her head out. She doesn't look surprised to see Angie there. If anything it's like she was looking for her. But maybe Angie is just imagining the softening around the eyes when Peggy spies her doing her best Juliet.

"It's Sunday," she says, "I thought you'd be in South Brooklyn visiting your family."

Angie waves her off. "They see enough of me as is. I figured I'd take a day for me for a change."

She smiles, "I quite like that idea. Taking a day for yourself." She holds onto the window sill and leans back and then leans forward again, pointedly staring at the skyline instead of Angie.

"What about you. Taking a day?"

"There's no rest for the wicked."

Angie laughs. It's too soft in her ears. "You're a lot of things English, but I'd never peg you as wicked."

Peggy just murmurs.

Neither of them talk after a while. The sun sets slowly and the drone of a whole city tickles their ears. From so high up it sounds less like a city and more like a river. A distant, cranky river with more than one timing belt in need of changing.

"How'd you know I was in," she eventually asks.

"I heard you pacing about. Everything all right?" Peggy sounds genuine.

"Audition," she lies.

That catches her interest and Peggy perks up. "Need help? I used to be quite the aid to performers."

"No foolin'?"

"The war." She shudders comically, but then smiles softly like she's got an old joke in her head. "Far too much time working with the USO."

Angie grins, "Meet anyone famous?"

"Oh all sorts."

"Yeah? Who?"

Peggy's coy, and it feels, for a second, like times before Angie knew what she did for a living, "That's classified."

"I saw Greta Garbo once."

"Did she 'just want to be alone?'" Peggy draws her face down and affects a really bad accent for the impression and Angie has to roll her eyes.

"Jeeze, English. That one's old enough to be my dad."

"You're quite developed for a ten-year-old."

"We bloom early in the Martinelli family."

"We were all late bloomers in the Carter family. Mother thought I'd never 'blossom.'"

Angie snorts. Peggy smiles again.

Its enough to almost forget the gajillion pounds of newspaper taking up space on her coffee table and that hazy look Peggy had in her eyes when Angie found her.

Almost.

"Hey Peggy, you doing all right?"

Peggy's still smiling and nods, "I've 'blossomed,' if that's what you're asking."

"It isn't."

Just like that it's like someone's stuck a knife in their tires. Any fun whizzes out in a pathetic sigh.

"I'm all right," she says so seriously.

"And your fella?"

"Angie…"

She's gonna tell Angie to leave it alone and Angie really doesn't want to hear that. "I worry."

"You mustn't."

"Wouldn't you?" God, she can sound like a real bitter hag when she wants to.

Peggy, who always has a story, can't figure out what to say. Her jaw works but nothin' comes out so Angie nods and shuts the window.

A minute later there's a knock on her door but she isn't in any mood to answer.

Not when she's looking at a little blurb in the afternoon paper just a day after Peggy's attack. One unidentified woman. Two men. One guy in the hospital, but the other and the woman long gone.

She stares real hard at the name of the guy in the hospital and then she looks up at her door and sees Peggy's shadow under it.

And she bites her lip and regrets every choice that's ever led her to this moment.

Because the guy in the hospital?

That's her cousin.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Peggy's waiting for her downstairs with a spot across from her saved. She's worried, as she's sitting down, that Peggy's gonna be nicer than usual. Throwing aside that prickly coat of see ya next Tuesday she normally wears to—she doesn't know—**ingratiate herself.**

"We're making this a bad habit," she says, her eyes on her newspaper.

"Real easy to break this habit," Angie fires back.

Peggy's painted lips purse. She looks around and Angie does too. They're alone for the moment, but a group of girls are incoming and their little bit of table paradise is about to go up in a gale of girlish glee.

"I don't do friends easily," Peggy says urgently. "And I appreciate your patience, but—"

"But you're about as talkative as an OSS agent."

Peggy jokes, "Hopefully less."

"See!" She catches her rising voice and glances guiltily around the room before hunching over the table and whispering, "See that's what I mean. You'd rather joke than talk."

"I talk. We've talked Angie."

"Where was I born?"

"South Brooklyn," she says quickly.

Angie nods, "Yeah? Now ask me the same question. Guess what my answer would be?"

"Leeds," she ventures.

"Or London. Or Aberdeen. How would I know?"

"Aberdeen is in Scotland."

She glares.

Peggy looks down at her tea and spins the cup on its saucer. The group of girls sit beside them and talk a mile a minute. Angie butters her toasts and listens lazily. Peggy takes too big a bite of a biscuit and stares at Angie while she chews.

Even though Peggy's been at the table longer Angie's the first one to leave. There really was an audition she could have spent her Sunday working on and now it's after work and she hasn't prepped and she hopes if she clocks in early maybe the boss'll let her go early too.

The click of heels on the tile tell her Peggy's followed her out of the dining room and into the foyer. "It **is** London," she says. She's being serious again and Angie has to stop walking or she might trip. "And I've got a family that cares for me and I even have friends—spread across four continents, but I lost too much in that blasted war."

She means she lost someone.

Angie can see Peggy's reflection in the glass of the front door. So serious and urgent and looking at the back of Angie's head with the kind of intensity that could melt a girl.

She turns carefully. "A friend? Or boyfriend."

Peggy winces.

Angie's soft spoken—which is a chore for her. "How'd they go?"

Peggy swallows and it looks like she's on a razor's edge between her status quo and what the rest of the world calls feelings. "Plane crash."

"I'm sorry."

One side of her mouth crooks up, "I believe that's my line. Angie…I told you I'm not very good at being a friend."

"Yeah, you're pretty lousy at it."

"But I want to change." She starts to reach for Angie's hand and stops herself. Smiles in that friendly way that she really is lousy at. "I happen to have a bottle of brandy that needs to be drunk."

"Yeah?"

"And I'd very much like to share it with you."

"That all you're sharing?" It comes right out of Angie. A reflex like kicking the doctor when he taps you on the knee. She can't believe she said it and holds her breath waiting for Peggy to say something back.

Peggy, when she wants to be, is a damn cipher that even the Germans couldn't crack. "Tonight," she says, and Angie can't tell if she's being set up or sated or if the one standing so close she can smell her perfume wants to kiss her.

She nods. "See you after work."

####

She doesn't get around to making the call she's gotta make until after the post-lunch rush. The boss steps out for a smoke and that leaves the broom closet he's christened his "office" empty.

The dial on his phone sticks on the three but she finally manages to get a call out to her cousin. He is, as one would expect after what the newspaper recounted, still in the hospital, but his wife seems to think he'll be okay.

"His skull got nearly cracked in half, but the doctors are saying he'll be talking real soon!" Her cousin's wife is the exact kind of optimistic idiot a fella like her cousin needs.

Then she tells Angie to hold and doesn't bother covering the mouth piece as she shouts across the room to Angie's uncle that his niece is on the line and did he want to talk to her.

Angie does **not** want to talk to her uncle, but if she hangs up she'll wind up with a little bald Italian man on her doorstep and her date that night'll be ruined.

If it is a date.

She doesn't—"Angie, babydoll, it's been too long." Her uncle's got a voice that's smooth like coffee. And he's the only man that she's never wanted to punch when they compare her to a toy selling at Macys.

"Hi," she says. 'Round him she always has trouble finding more than three words to put together.

"You're calling after your cousin?"

"I saw his name in the paper."

He hems and haws about his son and then invites her to come visit him. He misses her. He'd like to see her.

She's gotta go.

Only you don't turn down a fella like Vince Martinelli. Ever.

She starts, "Well I got an audition tonight…"

"So tomorrow." It sounds like happy uncle speak, but Vince Martinelli doesn't make requests. He says something and it happens. He'd tell the moon to rise at noon and there it'd be shining in the sky.

"I—"

"You can come after work can't you?"

She can. She doesn't really want to, but she can. Phone still pressed to her ear she thumps her head against the wall and wonders, again, why she thinks she needs to save Peggy Carter.

"Yeah," she finally says, "I'll see you tomorrow."

The back door of the diner slams open and she hangs up fast, slipping out of the closet before the cloud of pomade and cigarette smoke can see her.

####

The audition, from Angie's view, does **not** go well. Something about staying up all night thinking about her family and next door neighbor left Angie so distracted that she started by reading the other person's lines.

Twice.

Her head and feet and everything in between are aching and near dead by the time she clomps up the stairs to her room. Girls say hello and Sarah Trellis tries to talk to her like they're friends and she's proud of herself for not shoving her over the bannister.

The lights are out in Peggy's apartment. She sees that even though she has to stand back and look to do it. Hayseed (her real name's Dottie something but she's not keen to remember what because if she makes it more than a month Angie will be a monkey's aunt **and** uncle) is coming out of her room on the opposite side of Peggy's and smiles all big and wide like only people who've never seen the Atlantic before can.

Angie plasters on her biggest and broadest smile and nods and says yeah a lot as the girl talks about how "BIG" and "EXCITING" everything in New York City is.

"Have you seen Peggy," she asks and that snaps Angie out of her "yeah" phase.

"Not since breakfast."

Dottie looks sad and Angie wonders what the hell Hayseed thinks Angie does all day that she'd have time to just go and **see** Peggy.

"I just…I had a question for her."

Angie raises an eyebrow because most girls avoid Peggy with a ten foot pole outside of breakfast. "She's all right for conversations but you wouldn't want her for a bridesmaid," Angie's heard.

She wouldn't want Peggy for a bridesmaid either.

"If I see her I'll tell her you're looking?"

Dottie nods and thanks Angie "soooo much," and by the time Angie's pushed her way into her room she's ready for bed—brandy and babe be damned.

"Is she gone?"

Never mind. Sleep is for idiots.

Peggy's at her table, drink already poured, and she's poured into that black and red silk robe and those red lips of hers are poised to smile.

"So you say we're friends and then you just sneak into my place?"

"To avoid that," glass in hand she points at the door.

"Way to jump on the grenade soldier."

"Oh Angie, I'd always jump on a grenade for you. Unfortunately she's more like an atom bomb."

She pops her shoes off and groans in relief because it's her own damn apartment. "A real cheerful one."

"How **does** she smile so much?"

"Right?" She starts unbuttoning her dress as she hip checks her closet open. "You'd think her cheeks would hurt."

Peggy goes quiet as she sips her brandy and after Angie's out of her uniform and into her dressing gown she turns and finds Peggy staring straight ahead with her jaw rigid like a president's cut into a mountain.

"So you gonna tell me **how** you dodged that atom bomb? Because I'm pretty sure my door was locked."

Peggy flushes and drinks her brandy.

"You didn't climb through the window did you?"

"She knocked. Multiple times."

"So you figured a four story drop was worth the chance to escape." Normal people don't do that.

Peggy shakes the brandy bottle. "The promised company helped."

She drops into the chair opposite her and takes the proffered drink. She's always been a sucker for sincere flattery. Even when it's meant to distract her. "That's about the nicest thing anyone's said to me."

Peggy brightens.

"This week."

The way Peggy deflates makes Angie feel a little better. She knows it isn't Peggy's fault she's a high class prostitute getting banged around by guys with more money than goodness in 'em, but her day's been rotten and teasing Peggy helps a little.

She's not proud of it.

She drinks too much in a gulp.

Really not proud of it.

Some of the brandy hits the wrong pipe and she coughs and Peggy leans forward like she's gonna pat her on the back and Angie has to hold up her hand to ward her off.

Then Peggy smirks, "Thought you Americans could handle your liquor."

"You try routing it down the wrong pipe," she wheezes.

"No, I'm fine sending it down the right one thanks." To illustrate Peggy sips her brandy and then Angie has to try not to watch the way her throat undulates when she does.

She drinks a little more and then some more and then it's only after she's had a couple more than she should that she notices the newspapers still laid out on her coffee table.

####

Peggy doesn't ask about the papers. Thank God.

Instead she talks about work and tries not to scowl and she speaks fondly of a war Angie never hears people speak fondly of and she sips her brandy and leans on the table and a lot of the mystique that props her up is gone.

And it should knock the bloom right out of whatever rose Angie's carrying for her, but it doesn't.

So she gives them some space by flopping onto the bed.

"You didn't spill a drop," Peggy observes. She's twisted in the chair so she's facing Angie and Angie's mouth is dry and other parts of her are wet and brandy with Peggy Carter after a long day was a bad idea.

"That's nothing. Give me six plates and a pot of coffee and then you'll really see a show."

Peggy goes cipher on her again. "This one's good enough."

She wonders if maybe that isn't Peggy's cipher face. Maybe its another kind of face. Maybe she's schooling bad thoughts too.

She chews on her lip.

Peggy's eyes are quick but Angie still sees the way they dart to her mouth and back again.

She scoots over on the bed.

####

Peggy makes it onto the bed eventually. Angie doesn't know how long it takes because she's not about to glance at the clock. That's how spells are broken. And whatever's happening between them is a spell. Like one some crazy Hydra fanatic would make.

The brandy makes it to the bed too and Angie sets it on her bed side table. "Never get liquor on the sheets," she explains, "Miriam's got a nose like a bloodhound."

"Just for liquor?"

She ticks them off with her fingers, "Liquor, cigarettes, reefer, hot dogs, cats, dogs, a ferret which I'm still not clear on how it got in, and m—"

"Men." Peggy finishes Angie's sentence with a grin and the closest she's ever seen her to a giggle.

"She can smell a guy even when he's on the **street**. One time a girl wore her boyfriend's coat up the stairs and Miriam came this close to tackling her." She makes a tiny space between her thumb and finger and holds it up for Peggy's amused inspection.

Peggy touches her wrist to push her hand down. She's still laughing. "And the ferret? How on earth did she smell it?"

"No one knows! My theory is she's got a robot nose. Left over from the war."

"Oh they just issue those do they?"

She grabs Peggy's nose because she's had too many and moves it back and forth. "You tell me."

That gets another laugh and a playful hand slap. Then Peggy's reaching over her to pour more brandy and Angie's catching a glimpse of all those bits that you only get to see after you buy 'em dinner. She looks away just as Peggy's try to sit back down.

And then time stops.

It doesn't really. She's pretty sure she can hear the tick tick tick of her clock and cars on the streets and Hayseed warbling down the hall in her room.

But on the bed. In the precise confines of that mattress and frame. Time stops.

She doesn't breathe because that'll kick time back into gear. Peggy doesn't either.

They're just inches from each other. Face wise. Otherwise Peggy's knee is pressed to the outside of Angie's thigh and her elbow is brushing Angie's other knee. She's warm like standing in the sun after years being in the shade.

Peggy's the cipher this close too. This huge and gorgeous cipher within kissing distance.

Angie can't focus on any part of her. Not those lips red like half her dressing gown or eyes dark like rocks in the of the river or that nose that could softly brush her's with no effort at all. She's just too close. Too **there**. Too much.

Peggy's no cipher when she kisses though. She's gentle. She's hungry. She's lonely. She's all the pieces she keeps locked up and Angie has to close her eyes to hide from her.

A hand slips into her hair and catches on a pin and stills.

Peggy's **ardent**.

Peggy Carter kisses her and words she barely remembers reading in high school are flooding through her head. Screw being an actor and screw being good. She could be a writer like Hemingway if Peggy's gonna keep kissing her.

Nails scrape against her scalp like the ecstasy priests tell her to avoid and when she gasps a tongue slips into her mouth. She tilts her head and her hand finds a swell of a woman who moans at the touch.

Just like that time starts back up again. Grinding forward with a pained gasp. She pulls back and is pretty sure she'll never get the image of Peggy's smudged lipstick and bruised lips out of her head.

Peggy's not a cipher anymore. She's confused. Her breath is hot and sour with brandy and **intimate**. "Angie."

She squeezes Peggy's hip, because it isn't the kiss and it isn't Peggy and it isn't that they've got no future being like they are. It's bandages still tight around Peggy's ribs and the shadow of the cut behind her ear Angie can still see. It's her own cousin with a cracked skull.

She swallows. "When you came to the automat half passed out where were you coming from?"

Peggy's not quite as breathless anymore. "Work."

She wants to rub small circles with her thumb and never forget how Peggy's hard and soft. "What kind of work?"

Now. Now, Peggy's just terrifying. She's a wolf with teeth too close. "Why are you so determined to find out?"

"Why are you so determined to hide?"

"Don't." She says it like a command. Like she's said it before and people listened.

"Peggy I like you, but any way you look at us this is gonna hurt and right now," Peggy's up and off the bed. "Right now, I'm thinkin' you're gonna kill me."

Her back is to Angie but she can still see how her whole body sinks when she sighs. "I never wanted to kill you, Angie." Then she's out the door. It doesn't even slam. Just clicks shut like they were in there playing bridge.

She cleans up the glasses and hides the brandy away.

She doesn't think about what Peggy said. Not because it hurt. As soon as Peggy kissed her she knew it was all gonna hurt.

It was the way she said it. That she never wanted to kill her. She said it like she was sorry. Not for what she'd done, but what she was going to do.


	4. Chapter 4

Shockingly, for Angie at least, she doesn't dream of kissing Peggy. Even a little bit.

Okay, that's a lie.

It isn't shocking that she doesn't dream of Peggy, because, point in fact, she doesn't dream. Because she doesn't sleep. Because she **tries** to sleep and then she starts running over the conversation and what might have been a veiled threat and everything else and even though she really, really, **really** wants to sleep she just twists around under the covers until the sun's up in the sky and pale light's streaming through the window.

The sky's just a gray haze. A little yellow because there's a great big sun behind hit. But mainly it's gray. And the city's gray too and it's all as depressing as walking through a sea of fellows in the same suits and hats on the way to the train.

It stays that gray all day. That brings down the mood of the folks who come in asking for a cup of coffee or a ham and cheese sandwich.

Angie, being the middle kid that always had to step between fights and sooth ruffled boy feathers, just smiles harder. Her cheeks hurt by the end of the day and that makes her think of her and Peggy talking about Hayseed and **that** makes the rest of her hurt because Peggy Carter's slit a hole in Angie's skin and crawled inside and she's pretty sure there's no way she's gonna get her out.

Travelling to Brooklyn after work is more of an ordeal than usual. The train's backed up and decides to skip her stop which leads her twenty minutes and one bus out of her way. When she finally steps onto the narrow tree-lined street her uncle lives on the sun's well past set and most folks have moved off their stoops to warm up inside. A couple of houses are glowing friendliness and she can see families gathering around eating warm dinners.

Angie's stomach wishes it was going inside for a warm dinner.

But nope. Instead her uncle's sitting on the bench in his front garden. The whole neighborhood is built like his place. Blocky brownstone with big front gardens that stretch out towards the street. Most of 'em are growing things in the gardens.

Her uncle just has a big tree and a lots of flowers and prickly bushes you wouldn't want to fall in. When it's sunny out he totters around with a watering can and pretends to be a lot more old and senile than he is.

But now, waiting on her, he's clever as the fellas he idolizes in his mysteries. Guy's like Nick Charles or Sam Spade. He's reading one of the books. His eyes scanning each page rotely before flipping to the next.

She peers at the spine when she's close enough and sees its about as far from hard boiled boy fiction as it can be. "Machiavelli," she says, her nose wrinkling, "really? Was 'I Want Everyone To Think I'm Evil Incarnate" checked out of the library or something?"

He chuckles and it's supposed to be warm but it chills her through and she pulls her light coat tighter around herself. "Running your mouth is what always get's you into trouble Angie." He licks his thumb and turns the page. Never looks at her. She's not "worth" it. Not yet. Not to him.

She's gotta earn his respect.

It rankles her and she shifts on her heels and juts out her jaw and sucks on her front teeth.

"You should sit."

"I'm fine standing."

"After all day in that diner? No babydoll. Sit."

She takes the seat next to him and watches him read in the light of the street lamp.

"There a reason-"

He cuts her off just by lifting his hand. Still doesn't look at her. So she stares at him hard. He's got big knuckles thick with arthritis and fleshy fingers that end in neatly trimmed nails. He used to come over and listen to the radio with the whole family and just clip and file. Real neat like. Clip and file.

"How's your brother?"

"Happy in Nebraska. He's got a little garage he runs. Wants my ma to come out and visit."

"Not you?"

She studies the flowers, because that's better than socking her uncle in the mouth.

"What about acting? You still acting Angie?"

One of her hand squeezes the strap of her purse tight and the other digs into her thigh.

"Still playing pretend?"

She stands jerkily. "Well this was real fun. My cousin ever wakes up you tell him I said hi."

She's got her hand on the gate and is pushing it open when her uncle calls after her. "Why'd you call?"

It's actual curiosity. Which isn't something her uncle tends towards. So she stops and glances over her shoulder. "I was worried."

He harrumphs and it makes him sound older than he'd probably like. "We both know how you feel about him." About all of 'em.

"Yeah. I love the big ape. Him, late trains and enemas. My favorite things."

It's a pretty coarse thing to say and if her dad were still alive he would have thumped her with that big gold family ring of his.

Her uncle just glares with those eyes of his. Like chips of dark glass. "I get the feeling it wasn't for him. Or even you."

"You know my ma. Always worried about the nephew she can't stand."

It rolls off of him like water in a hot pan. "See I get the feeling you're doing this for **her**." Her uncle knows Angie. Knows things about her the rest of the family can't. So he can take something simple like a pronoun and twist it into something…nasty.

She's proud of herself. She doesn't squeak or anything. Doesn't even bulge her eyes a little. "You gonna keep dancing like Fred or you gonna tell me who?"

"The woman who cracked my son's skull nearly in two and got Jimmy Andronico so scared no one's seen him since."

Jimmy Andronico. Of course. The other guy messing with Peggy that night has to be the only guy in the whole wide world to ever get a hand up Angie's skirt. She's, not for the first time, proud of Peggy.

But she snorts. "You really think I'd know a crummy broad like that?"

He's still staring.

"You gotta be kidding."

"Who is she Angie?"

How can she say when she doesn't even know? "I got know idea. Why're my cousin and Jimmy running around with broads who aren't their wives?"

He's staring so hard. Trying to **read** her. But Vince Martinelli hasn't been able to lay her bare in years and he's not gonna get back in the habit with a few intimations and lousy questions.

"Whatever you're flirting with, you'd be wise to lay it to rest. You're no sixteen year old girl with a dad down in the garage to protect you."

"And you're not the big bad bossman you used to be. So save the threats for someone who gives a hoot."

The gate groans like an old man as she slams it closed with her heel. At the far end of the street a '39 Oldsmobile rounds the corner and brakes to a noisy stop. She can't see who's driving. But she hears them drop into reverse and watches the headlights wink out.

It's not fear that's like snow down her back, because Angie's no lily liver. But it's definitely something and she hears the blood like drums in her ears.

Her uncle laughs and when she turns real quick to look at him she can see the way his lips are curved up in a sick joke of a smile. "Lay it to rest babydoll, before it lays you."

####

Her uncle's laughter follows her all the way back to the train.

Thankfully that '39 Oldsmobile does not.

She gets off a stop early and slips into a diner to use their phonebook. She almost tries Jimmy's house first, but the ball and chain strapped to his ankle, Phyllis LaManna Andronico, has hated Angie since second grade when they kissed and Angie said it was nice and Phyllis said she was gross and shoved her in the gravel.

Okay so maybe Angie hated Phyllis for that one.

But Phyllis definitely hated Angie after she briefly stole Jimmy away to get back at Angie for telling everyone she was secretly a boy.

Just because a gal likes kissing other gals doesn't mean she's a boy. Just means she's got tastes. Predilections.

But anyways. Phyllis LaManna Andronico is a bitch. Iris Andronico, Jimmy's dear old mom, is not. A drunk yes. Bitch, no.

And besides, she loves Angie. Says she was "real good" for her boy.

She calls and speaks brightly and says she'd just love to talk to Jimmy. Iris hems and haws. Insists she hasn't seen her son. Says she's **worried**.

Angie says she knows. Says it in that way only folks from the neighborhood can say it. Because some boys work in garages and others work on the docks and some boys slick their hair back and wear nice suits and do very, very bad things.

Guess what kind of boy Jimmy Andronico is?

All she does is say she'd like to talk to Jimmy. If he calls.

She's "worried," she insists.

She just "wants to help."

"You're such a good girl," Iris sniffs. "Why couldn't you have stayed with Jimmy? You were so good together."

She doesn't have the heart to remind the woman they dated for just two months and it was the most boring and awkward two months of her life. Doesn't have the heart to tell her about birds and bees and girls who like girls.

"I wonder too," she softly lies.

####

She gets to the Griffin five minutes before curfew. Same time as Peggy, who steps out of a private car looking glamorous and put together.

At least until she sees Angie.

She falters for half a second. "Angie," she breathes, and it's enough to make Angie want to drag her upstairs and just **talk**.

"Hot date," she asks instead. And to anyone else it would sound teasing.

But Peggy's a girl she's kissed so she looks pained instead. "Rather frustrating actually. Confusing even." She cocks her head. "What about you? I thought you were done early today."

"Saw a movie. Took a walk. Enjoyed the fog."

Peggy laughs lightly. "What'd you see? Anything good?"

"I thought about seeing that new flick, Gilda? You know the one about the gorgeous broad twisting an idiot up in knots? Think there's some Nazis in it too."

Peggy misses a step, but is smooth like silk in her recovery. "H-how was it?"

She shrugs, "Don't know. Saw Harvey Girls again instead. It's a garbage flick but its kind of nice to watch someone like Judy Garland in something so miserable." She reaches the door before Peggy and turns on her heel. "We all gotta do bad things sometimes right?"

Peggy's mouth works and nothing comes out.

So Angie smiles softly, because it feels like Peggy's always got something to say-even when she doesn't say it.

"See ya later English."


	5. Chapter 5

####

The next day is the best day. Ever. In Angie Martinelli's life. The audition she bombed so bad they called it London? She gets a callback.

"Next week," they say. "Wear red."

She whoops.

Maybe she hollers a little. She vibrates all through her afternoon shift and doesn't even falter in that pathetically sad little way when she remembers she can't tell Peggy all about it and watch her tight smile.

Peggy.

There's the sour note on a very good day.

Peggy. Who supposedly cracked her cousin's skull. Peggy. Who has her uncle, a man who nevers runs scared, **nervous**. Peggy. Who's maybe wrapped up in something more than prostitution. Peggy. Who she kissed like it was V-J Day.

Peggy.

As golden a day as it is (and it is golden-there's gorgeous sun and everything), Angie still sighs a lot. And every time it is because of Peggy Carter.

The biggest sigh comes when Peggy walks through the door and looks at her and then looks away and then comes and sits at the lonely looking bar.

Peggy studies her as she works. Eyes hot and focused. Lips pulled tightly together. Peggy has a habit of sittin' rigid. That's her armor. Angie gets it. She wears armor too. All the girls do. Sass talk or smiles or golly jee whizzes or all of the above. There's a way the world is always gonna look at a girl who's trying to make it without a fella. So on the armor goes, first thing in the morning. Usually as the last curler falls out of the hair and that list bit of lipstick is applied.

Peggy's armor always feels like **real** armor though. Like a bulwark between her and the world. It's probably what makes her so addictive. 'Cause when Angie gets glimpses of what's there behind sharp eyes and sharp tongue and straight back she's enchanted.

Enamoured.

She wordlessly gives Peggy her coffee and puts in her usual order. She doesn't ignore Peggy. She's not a babe.

She just…well the point is she's not real sure **how** to act. It isn't every day you and a girl kiss and then sort of fight and then say you're an apocalypse for each other and then act like tits.

Peggy's breaks the silence with a bark of laughter that's soft enough not to bring the whole automat's attention down on their heads.

"We're a disaster."

She's not wrong, and Angie smiles. "How's the telephone company," she asks, and it's part apology and part accusation.

"How's the automat?" **That** sounds a whole lot more like an accusation.

Angie's hand rattles all on its own. "Busy."

Peggy nods and Angie isn't really sure what's going on. There's enough levels to their conversation that it feels like leaning off the Empire State Building.

"I got a callback," she says abruptly.

Real abruptly judging by the way Peggy looks startled. Then confused. Finally she smiles. And not that brittle fake one.

The **real** one.

"That's wonderful Angie."

"Week from today."

"A nice role?"

"A **big** one. I'm telling you Peggy. I get this one and in ten years Cary Grant's giving me an Oscar."

"Where's the show? I'll have to make a point to get tickets."

"You know if I'm in it I can just comp 'em. That's gotta be a perk right? Because it sure isn't pay. Not careful I'll have a Tony and still be minding these counters."

"Tips should improve."

She's gonna laugh. She really is. It's a funny joke and it deserves a laugh. She's even grinning and her mouth is falling open-but then she can't laugh. Because the glass doors are spinning and depositing Jimmy Andronico in **her **automat.

Peggy notices her joke isn't getting the results it should. She barely glances back at Jimmy. Just out the side of her eye without moving any other part of her. "Friend?"

"Sure."

She crosses the room in quick strides and ushers Jimmy over to a booth. Peggy just sits at the counter. Actually eats her sandwich. Taking those big bulging bites that are so at odds with that accent of hers. If she recognizes Jimmy she's the one that ought to be getting the Oscar from Cary Grant.

####

"Jimmy," she says brightly. Her hand latches onto his bicep and she squeezes it tight. "What the heck are you doing here," she asks in a hurried whisper.

"You called my mom-" His reply is cut short by her shoving him towards a booth.

She smiles brightly and whips out her pad. "What can I get ya honey?"

"I don't really have any-"

"Turkey plate and a cup of coffee," she says loudly. "Can do! Anything el-"

"Look Angie you're the one calling my-"

"Okay! I'll be right back with that coffee."

She rips the order off the pad as she walks. Tries not to be too stiff. Peggy has a newspaper out and is perusing it with one hand while holding her sandwich with the other. She watches Angie as she walks by.

Not quite the cipher look of hers because Angie is pretty sure that's actually her "I want you naked and panting **now**" look. But it's certainly inscrutable.

She passes Jimmy's ticket off to the cook and shoots Peggy something kind of like an apology as she snags the coffee pot and a cup. "Be right back," she insists.

Peggy waves her off. "No rush," she says-mouth still loaded for bear with ham and cheese.

Back at the booth Jimmy's fidgety. He's also chalky and haggard and basically looking like a soldier straight out of a POW camp.

"When called your mom," she says out the corner of her mouth. "I didn't think you were gonna actually show up at my work."

"Seemed more polite than coming to your hotel."

Her eyebrow hops up all on it's own. "For not talking to me in ten years you know an awful lot about me."

He's kind of sweet when he looks up at her and smiles. "Church." Like it explains everything.

Okay it does actually explain everything.

"Phyllis must love that."

He looks down at the coffee she's filling his cup with. "Nope." How this guy got into the line of work he's in Angie doesn't know, because he's about as guileless as her three year old niece.

Across the automat a James Cagney wannabe shouts, "Hey sweetheart you got other customers you know!"

At the counter Peggy stops eating her sandwich to whip around and glare. She's surprised the guy doesn't completely combust by the time she gets to him.

She finishes with Cagney, pours coffee for too more tables, nods at Peggy again and then returns to Jimmy. He eats his turkey plate like a man that's been denied. There's lots of gross lip smacking and that real annoying noise a person makes in the back of their throat when they're trying to breathe and eat at once.

Angie doesn't bother hiding the disgust on her face. Even though her mom's in her head telling her to be more gracious.

"You not looking too good Jimmy. Rough racket?"

He glances up with hard eyes. "Yeah…I need you to give your uncle a message. I'm done."

"You think I'm talking to him?"

"More like working for him." He glances around. "This is real smart. Out in the open. Neutral. Like Sweden."

"Switzerland." She shakes her head, "And I don't work for my uncle."

"Then why're you looking for me?"

"Because my cousin-"

He snorts into his turkey and gravy.

"I could like my cousin." She couldn't. But she's still gonna be defensive about it. "Curiosity."

He believes that one about as much as she does.

"Look," she sighs, "I know you all were running girls and apparently you bit off more than you could chew. All I want to know is what happened."

That goes as far as a dollar at the tracks. Jimmy now just looks confused.

"The woman," she says succintly. Like maybe that'll explain everything.

And maybe it does.

Just saying it makes Jimmy's face contort. He's goes paler than he already was, so he's like the color of the plate he's eating off of, and he gets kind of angry too. Around the eyes. Little in the nose. A whole lot of emotions are hitting the guy at once and she's, just…for a second, maybe worried he's gonna have a fit and go face down into the brown gravy.

"You're mom know about you?" It comes out kind of a sneer.

She blinks.

Some stuff she's obligated to respond to, but this stuff? folks in the neighborhood and the stuff they might say about her? That she's just gonna sit on. She's learned a long time ago that fighting that kind of stupidity is sort of like beating your head against a windshield to get out of a car. It might work, but it sure is gonna hurt and there'll be scars for years.

Angie pours him more coffee. "Did you see her?"

"Yeah I saw her."

"She really crack my cousin's skull?"

He snorts. "His and six other guys."

She stops pouring. Jimmy doesn't notice the way her hand is shaking. He's slurping up coffee and wolfing down turkey.

"Whatever you're thinking Angie it wasn't girls. We were waiting on a pickup. Shady stuff bosses way above our pay grade are dealing in."

Angie works real hard not to look back at Peggy-who may not actually be the high class girl Angie's been thinking she's got to save.

"She came in all breathy. To Frankie's down on 14th? Just sighing and acting cute. So Frankie, Frankie himself takes her back for a 'tour.'" Jimmy can only manage the airquotes with one hand. "It's just all of us in the front. Waiting on the pick up. Then there's this noise. Like a yelp and we run in there because it's not a happy yel and find her knee half way up his-" he motions down at his pants, "And her fingers up his nose and she's pulling like she's gonna just rip it off."

"Jesus Jimmy." That's all she can say, because her brains still working to catch up.

"Then smack and pow and by the end of it your cousin and I are the only ones standing. She bolts and we chase and he gets cracked with a pool cue."

"How'd you get away?"

He coughs and she sees the way he folds to one side. "Didn't. Stabbed me through with the same cue. But then the cops were coming one way and the folks for the pick up come the other and I wasn't about to stick around."

She peeks around his jacket and blanches. There's blood. Old and new. A lot of it. Enough to give her flashes unpleasant m-she shakes her head. Nope. She's not gonna go down a rabbit hole.

Instead she kneels by him and puts a hand on his shoulder. It's narrow and bony against her palm. "You gotta see a doctor."

He shakes his head. "Can't. They're watching."

"Who? My uncle? Jimmy, my uncle isn't gonna care you missed a pick up."

"Not him."

"The woman?"

Peggy's still at the counter eating. Still unassuming. Still the Peggy she knew before Jimmy walked through the revolving door.

All the food and coffee's given him energy and turned him feverish. His eyes are wide. "Them. The one's making the pick up Angie."

She bites her lip. Because, if she's gonna be honest, she's confused. And out of her depth. And **confused**.

Jimmy was supposed to come in all puffed up and ready to lie and she was supposed to tell him to drop the act and lay off the prostitues and spill the name of the pimp.

He wasn't supposed to come in half dead and hunted.

She straightens up again and glances back at Peggy.

It's just a moment. One little instance. She looks past the broad line of Peggy's shoulder and catches her reflection in the chrome blender just beyond.

What she makes eye contact with isn't that sweet distant woman she kissed and has been half killing herself trying to help.

It's something sharp and savage and familiar.

She's so shocked she bumps into the table. Flatware clatters noisily and half the automat stops briefly to stare.

Peggy just whips around to look at her all inscrutable like.

Because Angie would like to think Peggy's looking shocked and sorry. Only she's still seeing that other thing-that reflection.

"Jimmy," she doesn't take her eyes off Peggy, still frozen on her stool. "You need to leave. Now."

She's not sure if he sees Peggy at the counter. He must. "You'll be okay?"

She hasn't taken her eyes off Peggy.

His clothes rustle as he stands and he squeezes her hand and presses wet, cold lips to her cheek before fleeing. "Thanks Angie."

Across the room Peggy's gone cool. All that British reserve freezing her into an ice sculpture.

So Angie's measured crossing the room. Her heels sound too loud against the linoleum. And she still doesn't take her eyes off Peggy. She can't.

"So he is a friend," Peggy finally says, when they're face to face with just the counter between them.

"Yeah. Lookin' like the only one I got in the joint."

"I'm not entirely clear," Peggy is conversational, "what your game is Angie."

She can be conversational too. So she leans on the counter. "You know English? The same thing's been crossing my mind."

That gets her one raised eyebrow.

Then Peggy's sipping her drink and purposely taking her eyes off Angie. "I suppose you could lay your cards on the table. Explain yourself."

"How 'bout you try first. Because I'm not the one that's gotta explain a pool cue between a fella's ribs."

"It's complicated."

"Only because you make it that way."

There's a little crack then in Peggy's armor. One of those ones with the addictive glimpse of what's going on beneath. And Angie thinks that if she can just snag the right words she can use them like a dagger. Slide right in through the crack and take the whole mess down.

But tires screech and horns blare and metals crunches outside. Like just about everyone else they both rush to the window to gawk.

Only Angie sees a familiar shock of black hair at the center of the mess of cars. So she runs through the revolving door and ignores Peggy calling after her.

She runs and even though she and God are on the outs she even throws up a little prayer.

Which is worthless. There's no prayer that's gonna help Jimmy Andronico now. Not when he's crushed between two cars and his blood is bright like paint on the street.

Her heel catches on a crack in the pavement and she dips. Then she rights herself. Spins around.

Peggy's standing there. Just standing there out of arm's reach.

She could be stricken.

Could be satisfied.

Angie can't tell.

They just stare at each other until the crowd swells around them and Peggy vanishes into it.

Then all Angie can do is think.

About how Peggy had said she didn't **want** to kill her.

She kind of thought that Peggy was being a romantic idiot when she said it. Hoped as much too.

But now.

Now she thinks maybe Peggy doesn't want to kill her.

But she's gonna snuff her out all the same.


	6. Chapter 6

The cops don't ask a lot of questions of the crowd. They stare at Jimmy's body while scratching their own parts out of boredom. One says "accident" and another nods.

Accident.

Angie shivers.

Jimmy's dead and it isn't an accident.

She's confused and scared and things are spinning all wrong but she knows an accident. Especially a car accident. And this one reaks of purpose.

"He stumbled," one driver says.

"Just out of nowhere," the other admits.

She watches that one. He talks about seeing a gorgeous **dame **on the street. Blond hair. Sweet smile. Great legs. He was **distracted**.

Accident Angie's well-formed tukhus.

She's jittery through the end of service and doesn't even blink when she realizes neither Jimmy or Peggy paid and it's gotta come out of her own pocket.

Things are spinning.

She can't sit on the train home. She bounces too much and people start avoiding her seat. So she stands close to the door and stares out the window at dark tunnels.

Jimmy's squished like a tomato and Angie can't stop feeling like she had a hand in it. Like she really did set him up.

Only she can't figure which is the one that's folded her into this. Her uncle's a snake if there ever was one. But Peggy's beaten a whole room of men senseless and came away with nothing but some bruised ribs and a bad lie.

Spinning and spinning and spinning 'round these lies.

So much so that she doesn't realize the power in the hotel is out until she's in her room and is flipping a now worthless switch. That'd explain why so many girls are milling about outside of their rooms and so many of their boys are downstairs cuddling and comforting them like the war is back on.

She changes into a dress that isn't her uniform and slips on a different pair of shoes figuring she'll make good on the lie she told Peggy and actually go see a movie. It'll be a way to clear her head and get some perspective.

Figure out her next move.

Then she notices there's a breeze coming through a window she never leaves open and was definitely closed when she walked in.

Nothing's spinning any more. It's crystal clear.

Hands snake around her waist and over her mouth and pull her back like a python. Before she can scream she smells Peggy's perfume and feels her hot breath in her ear and notices Peggy's not killing her. There's no knife or quick jerk of her neck. Just Peggy holding her close and breathing hard.

And there's no talking because as she tries to twist around and look at Peggy she sees Peggy's looking elsewhere and follows the hand that's come off her mouth and is pointing at the door.

The knob twitches.

Peggy drags her further into the shadows of an already dark room. Her chest is heaving against Angie's back and her breath is hot puffs on her neck and if someone wasn't trying to break into Angie's apartment and she wasn't confused as to how Peggy could move quiet like a mouse she'd be having a whole mess of other more pleasant thoughts.

The fingers at her waist dig in-pulling her closer. Pressing her up against Peggy like cellophane. She shudders and Peggy's grip loosens just barely. Enough so that her thumb can play across Angie's stomach.

Ah jeeze. She's screwed.

Peggy's other hand brushes Angie's arm as she reaches back towards herself and Angie has to close her eyes because she's having thoughts when it really isn't the time or place.

When she opens them again she sees a gun held just in front of her face.

Peggy's not like the boys from her neighborhood. The gun doesn't wobble, but is even and steady. Barrel pointed towards that door.

It's silent-more silent than that stupid door has **ever** been. There's no creak like usual. And there's no light to leak in because the electricity is all out and Angie's now got an idea as to why.

A figure all in black moves through the darkness lithely. Like the shadows they're all lurking in.

Peggy's fingers dig into Angie's front.

Then the world explodes in flashes of light and sulphur.

A hollow bang bang bang that makes her ears ring and her blood roar.

Peggy shoves her forward and maybe shouts "go."

So Angie goes.

Out the corner of her eye she can see Peggy charging the other person and sees the flash of another gun firing.

The other one's fast like Captain America. But Peggy's a goddamned freight train.

In the hall girls are screaming and scrambling in chaos. The lights out had everyone on edge and the gunshots has sent them screaching over it.

She pushes through them and jogs down the stairs and out onto the street. She's breathing fast and her blood is up like she's sixteen again.

A couple of guys are milling outside and all perk up when she sees them.

Which…well whatever's going on the way the guys are marching towards her can**not** be good. She starts walking the other way, hitch in her step and resisting the urge to all out run.

Then Peggy is by her side again, a little breathless and her arm around Angie's and a great big smile plastered on her face. "Keep walking," she says without moving her lips. "And don't look back."

So she keeps walking. Their heels clacking on the sidewalk.

And she tries real hard not to look back.

"Peggy," she says real low.

Peggy squeezes her arm. "It's all right," and her head is held high like she means it.

"I got a feeling you're knowing more than me right now."

A ghost of a smile graces those lips of hers. "I have a feeling you're right."

"Care to share?"

Her jaw sets. "When you're safe."

"They still following us?"

"They are. In a moment we're going to go into an alley. There's a car. We should get in it."

Angie must tense up because Peggy's soothing her with the thumb of hers.

"It's all right Angie. I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe."

"Promise?"

She feels Peggy's eyes on her and oh how they burn. "Promise."

The fellas after them pick up their pace as Angie and Peggy round into the alley. A dark blue Cadillac missing its plates is sitting there, front facing out. Angie slides into the driver's seat and then across the bench into the passenger seat as Peggy pushes in.

"Just keep your head down," she urges.

"English where in the bleedin' heck did you get a car? You didn't-"

Peggy snatches a screwdrive from under the seat and jams it into the ignition. "Borrowed it," she grunts.

The car roars to life as Peggy nearly floods the carburetor with gas. "Tall, Dark and English?"

"Excuse me?"

"This his?"

"No." She actually huffs when she says it.

The guys are standing shoulder to shoulder at the other end of the alley. The Cadillac's lights blazing on their matching dark suits and shining on their matching- "Guns!"

One of Peggy's hands pushes Angie down to the floorboard and she drives straight for the men, not even flinching as their bullets ping off the hood and crack the windshield.

She's…Angie sits back up on the seat after the car twists onto the road and just stares. Because the streetlamps are lighting Peggy like some sculpture out of Europe and that narrow jaw and high cheekbones and dark eyes are all resolute. And she looks like a god damned superhero. Out of the funny papers. Like if they'd made a super soldier out of a woman instead of Steve Rogers from Red Hook.

Not for the first time just looking at Peggy steals all the breath out of Angie.

"Are you hit," Peggy asks. She takes her eyes off the road to scan Angie worriedly.

"No I'm fine. Peggy what-"

"I thought you were with Hydra."

That's a new one. Angie's eyes bug out like a cartoon.

Peggy shakes her head. She's so damn earnest. Honest even. Angie's never seen it on her. "Or Leviathan. Or with the Russians. You were so curious, and your uncle-"

She snorts.

Peggy breathes in sharp through her nose. "These last two days I was sure you were a spy sent to kill me."

"You thought I was a-"

Peggy nods. She's **relieved**.

Like all those sort of threats she's laid at Angie's feet can be forgotten.

Wait. "So does that mean you're a spy?"

"An agent." Her voice is tight. "Angie what on earth were you doing?"

Okay now Angie's incredulous. "Me?!"

"Asking questions. Meeting with mobsters. This isn't some thriller you pay a dime to see."

"No shit Sherlock. Figured that out when my only ever boyfriend got smashed like catsup today." All that red's never gonna leave her head.

Peggy glances away and looks sorry. "I…I had no idea you were so close."

"Yeah, I mean I only dated him to get back at this girl." Something in her eyes is burning and she has to dig the heels of her hands in to soothe it. She sniffs. "So, Ms. Agent. You gonna tell me what's going on?"

"That war we all fought? It never ended."

Well that's succint.

"And what? I stumbled into the next D-Day?"

Another smile. Angie really knows how to pull 'em out of her. "In a manner of speaking. Whatever possessed you?"

She pulls her legs up onto the bench and wraps her arms around them. Squeezing herself into an uncomfortable ball.

Because here it is.

Earlier Peggy had asked for cards on the table and now its time for Angie to do as much. She sucks in a breath and lets it out, watching it fog the window.

"It's silly."

"You nearly died for something silly?"

Angie rests her chin on her knees. They're to Lincoln Tunnel now and the light comes in gentle waves as they pass under each garish yellow bulb. "So there's this girl." Peggy starts to smile and then catches herself. "Comes in every day and a lot of nights. Smiles like she's seen the world end and looks at me and I want to do the ending. And this one night. This one night she comes in roughed up. And, you know I've seen her roughed up before." Peggy's twisting the steering wheel in her bare hands. "But I'm a classy lady so I don't say nothing. But this time, this time it's bad. And when I do just the teeniest bit of investigating I find the folks who did the roughin' are my own idiot family and I think that maybe, possibly, I can help to see she's not getting roughed up anymore. I felt obliged."

"Obliged?"

She sighs. It's gonna sound stupid. In the wake of spies and Hydra and saving the world she's gonna look a fool. But she's gotta say it. "To have a chat with your pimp."

This revelation is apparently so shocking that Peggy swerves off the road and back onto it again. Gravel spits up into the undercarriage of the car and makes an awful racket and even though they're nearly out of civilization now and there's no light to speak of Angie's sure she sees a blush.

"A prostitute! All this time you thought I was a **prostitute**."

"Only since last week! And why are you acting so shocked?"

"I told you I worked at a phone company! How on earth does that lend itself to 'lady of the night?'"

"Well how else do you explain that fella ferrying you around?"

"The obvious conclusion! Spy."

"Well excuse me Mata Hari. Besides I don't see why you're so upset. Whores can be plenty classy. Biggest tippers at church? Whores and mobsters."

Peggy's bristling with indignant Britishness. "I'm neither."

"Good to know."

"Thank you." She seems cranky.

They make it out of the city and are now heading deep into Jersey. Angie's not real sure where exactly they're aiming for and Peggy seems too annoyed for her to ask.

Silence stretches.

"Your cousin and his friends? I presume you thought they beat me in some sort of-"

"Kinky sex thing? I was gonna tell all their wives."

"Did it never cross your mind that it all might have backfired?"

"Oh honey, I know were just about all those boys' skeletons are hidden. The worst any of them could have done to me was tell my mom stuff she already knows."

More silence. Peggy chews on Angie's words like they're some hearty bread.

"Is she all right with it?" She glances at her. Nervous and curious. "With you?"

Angie stares back. "What do you think?"

"But you still have a relationship?"

"Denial. Hurts like hell but gets me invited to Sunday dinners."

Peggy's got nothing to say to that. Her face is all inscrutable as her brain works on things she's not gonna privy Angie to. She just keeps driving. Darkness overtakes them the further the go. Cars becomes fewer. Distance between houses goes wider. The road lulls Angie.

And before she knows it her eyes are closing.

Last thing she sees before sleep is Peggy's profile. Hard and dangerous.

An agent, Peggy'd called herself.

She smiles sleepily.

Angie Martinelli's gone and fallen in love with an agent. A spy.

And who knew. It hurts just as bad as if she **were** a prostitute.


	7. Chapter 7

The car rattles to a stop-accompanied by hurried **very** British cursing. It pulls Angie out of her sleep and she glances at the clock on the dash. Past midnight.

Outside the damp of the last few days has broken into a soft rain.

"Where are we," she asks.

Peggy is fiddling with the screwdriver and the gas pedal and muttering to herself. "Middle of bleeding nowhere."

"We been driving all this time?"

"Of course why-"

"Radiator English. It's probably overheated."

Peggy looks like she doesn't want to believe it. Then she shakes her head and gets out. She's still mumbling and her frustration with something as simple as a brokedown car has Angie working hard not to smile.

The hood flips up and she can see Peggy in the headlights, hand on hip in annoyance.

The cool British spy who drove all night in a stolen car probably doesn't know the radiator from the carburetor.

So Angie gets out and ignores Peggy's gentle protest. "Could be gas too. I'm betting this thing wasn't filled up when we headed out of town."

Peggy's blushing.

Angie looks at the engine and the steam coming off. Definitely overheated. "We have any water?"

Peggy waves to the rain. "We've got plenty of water. It will just take a little time to collect it."

She goes around to the back of the car and squats down. The gravel is already turning grimy and it's gonna leave marks on her nice clean dress. Peggy is clearly confused as to what she's doing and just watches, arms crossed over her chest and the rain making short work of her normally fastidious curls.

Bracing herself against the bumper Angie reaches under the car and flicks the gas tank with her knuckle.

The hollow sound she hears just faintly above the rain makes her wince.

Peggy's not just grumpy. Now she's petulant. "We're out of gas aren't we?"

"Nothing but fumes."

She curses again.

Her arms are tight around herself and pulls the fabric of her jacket-showing a singed tear she might not have even noticed herself. "I believe I saw a petrol station a mile or two back. I can head there-"

"At midnight? We'll be lucky if they're open at dawn."

Peggy nods. "Than we'll bunk here for the night. If that's all right?"

It's more than all right for Angie. But she says instead that, "I guess there isn't much of a choice."

####

"You seem to know quite a bit about cars." Peggy's sitting in the front seat-back ramrod straight and gun nestled in her lap.

Angie's lounging in the back. She's kicked her shoes off and is resting her feet by the headrest and watching the way the rain beats the windshield and finds its way in through the bullet holes. "Dad was a mechanic."

That earns something like a rueful smile. "Learned at his knee then?"

"Something like that." She taps Peggy with a toe, "What about you? How's a nice girl from London go and become an American spy?"

"Agent," she corrects absentmindedly.

"Exchange program? Or you flee stateside when they got low on crumpets during the Blitz."

"Family business I suppose. My parents died when I was little and my uncle naturally guided me towards it."

She grips the leather with her toes and sinks further into the seat. She remembers Peggy's glowing recommendation from her dad's old friend. And the way she'd always talked before. Like there was family alive and happy 'cross the pond.

Peggy turns around. "Are you all right?"

"When they'd die?"

Long enough ago that the sting of it doesn't change Peggy's features. "When I was a child. No more than four or five."

"And you're uncle?"

"Killed in Austria in '39."

"Why'd you lie?" Her voice is a whisper and she wonders if Peggy has to strain to hear her.

She can play it dumb. Or act like she can't hear the question. Angie's given her that out. But instead she's sad. Maybe melancholic is more appropriate. When she does speak it comes out honest-like. "I don't know."

Only that isn't good enough for Peggy and she moves forward throwing her arms over the front seat and hugging it. "Doesn't that bother you Peggy? Lying all the time?"

Something flickers in her eyes and Peggy has to look down at her pistol so Angie can't see it. "It's the job."

There. A crack. The tiniest.

"But until tonight I wasn't the job. I was your…" Peggy looks up with the heartbreaking mixture of fear and hope. "Friend," she finishes. "So why lie?"

Peggy's falling now. So fast. All that armor tempered in tea and crumpets and war is splintering. "I lose people Angie. The nature of what I do means I've got more obits in my address book than contacts."

"So shouldn't you want to make something honest?"

It shatters. "Yes." Peggy's crying and it crunches up Angie inside to watch.

She leans closer. Reaches out and catches some of those tears with her thumb. "Why don't you?"

Peggy turns away. Stares ahead. Her shoulders, her chest, all of her is hitching with these tears she's trying not to shed.

"The way I see it," Angie's real quiet. "There's no point in saving the world if you don't get to live in it Peg."

Wet laughter. "You're not the first person to say that."

"Yeah? Nice to know you surround yourself with so many geniuses."

More laughter. "You've no idea."

"So," the rain's picking up and tapping against the roof of the car in a soothing rhythm. "You gonna live?"

Peggy just…sits there. So Angie slips back and wishes she hadn't said anything. What the heck was she thinking putting herself on the line like that? It was a damn fool-

Suddenly Peggy throws the door open and bursts out of the car. She slams it behind her her-leaving in Angie in deafening silence.

Angie's blood's running hot but it feels a little pleasant and something nervous and nice all at once is boiling inside of her. She tracks Peggy stalking through the rain to the rear door and she presses herself back into the opposite corner of the car.

The door opens and the rain slips in.

She can just see Peggy from the neck down now. The wet's cut straight through her silk blouse and is beading on the wool of her skirt.

Then she's in the car. Poised like a cat. Hand bracing herself on the headrest. Soaked through.

Peggy's not so scary looking so bedraggled. Her make up is near gone and her hair's ruined. Like a puppy pulled out of the river.

She's not so scary.

But oh that look.

Angie swallows.

Quite of their own volition her legs, up on the bench in front of her, part. She maybe sighs. She can't be sure of anything much anymore.

On account of this hungry and devastating creature looming there half out in the rain.

She swallows. "You're letting the wet in." Her throat sounds dry and scratchy.

Peggy's almost violent the way she surges forward. She's this carnal creature that would turn Angie's legs to jelly if she were standing. She presses into the door and struggles so hard not to kiss those lips that want kissing.

Peggy's hovering over her and smelling like rain and day old perfume and all that armor, all that stuff they got to carry around with them from day to day, has been washed away.

Maybe it'll build back up tomorrow. Angie can't be sure. But tonight in a Cadillac in the middle of Jersey it's gone.

And she's not one to brag about conquests because it's always creeped her out when her cousins or brother did it, but she **has** kissed a lot of girls.

None of 'em ever kissed like Peggy kisses her.

The world's not supposed to end in a kiss. All that important reality isn't supposed to feel like it's coming crashing down around 'em.

But kissing Peggy sends the rest of the world on its way.

One hand supports them and the other one finds its way to Angie's bare leg. Fingertips honest to God dance up her calf and play at her knee and she has to stop kissing just to tug on Peggy's ear with her teeth and remind her, "The door's still open."

One of the legs wedge between her thighs moves and there's a thump and the outside is shut away.

Peggy's stopped kissing her and her nose, all cold, is pressed to Angie's throat. Her fingers are still on her leg. Dragging real slow.

Up.

And down.

Climbing higher.

But slow.

Peggy's a nibbler, but she's real confident about it. It's all part of that sweet build. Between her mouth and her hands she's stoking Angie like a goddamned fire.

"English," she gasps, pulling on Peggy's shoulders and wrapping her fingers around her wrist and trying not to flail from what's building, "if you don't touch me soon I'm gonna-"

Two fingers. Maybe three. Who's counting. All she knows is Peggy thrusts up into her and catches her gasp in her mouth and oh lord.

Oh lord the woman's good at this.

Angie has been crushing on Peggy so long. She's never actually thought about the sex-just assuming she'd be like every other good girl who's come along.

But Peggy gets it. God does she-Angie needs more than that hand pumping in and out of her and that goddamned thumb of Peggy's fluttering across her clit.

She needs skin. Hot, damp skin. She claws at Peggy's shirt and pulls at the buttons and forces Peggy back until Angie can straddle her thighs and have it all.

Just like the girls in the magazines.

####

Angie's never understood the appeal of boys. She gets how its easier-that's why she tried her hand at one or two-but really she doesn't get it. They've got no stamina compared to girls. And the hair. All that hair on their chests and arms and backs.

Peggy, unlike boys, is smooth. Her breasts aren't hidden behind a thatch of brown to match the one between her legs. And why the reflection is crummy she can still get an idea of the muscles in Peggy's back when she's over her and kissing her between nips and teasing smiles.

And she can go for hours.

**They** can go for hours.

Okay maybe Peggy's a little worn out now. She's lying on her back and playing with Angie's hair. Smiling like she's got a happy secret.

Angie, being younger and having not recently engaged in any fights with other spies, has a bit more energy. She's down on the floorboard with one of Peggy's legs thrown over her shoulder and enjoying a very lazy bit of cunninliguis.

Peggy's bare chest is flush and she's glowing with sweat. It could be love, the way Peggy's looking at her.

Could be lust too.

She slips a finger into Peggy and watches the way her eyes close and she sighs, taking the air deep into her chest. Angie pauses just long enough to kiss her thigh.

"Feel it," she asks.

Peggy just tugs her lower lip into her mouth and nods.

"Let it come."

She doesn't even need to add another finger. She could probably just blow and Peggy'd come. She's real careful letting the orgasm creep up on Peggy. It's slow and easy and for seconds that seems to span hours there's just dark hooded eyes watching her and the smell of Peggy and the feel of her pulsing against Angie's mouth.

It's gotta be the closest a hellbound gal like her is ever gonna get to heaven.

Peggy uses her handhold in Angie's hair to pull her up to her. The kisses they share, all naked and happy, are lazy and easy too. Like they've been kissing each other all their lives.

They don't talk.

They cuddle.

Angie pillows her head on Peggy's breast and it isn't hard to nuzzle and say "this is nice" into her cleavage.

The hand combing through her hair pauses. Then goes back to what it was doing. Nails scraping all pleasant against her scalp. "It is."

"It's not gonna last is it?"

"No." Peggy's so quiet Angie could have imagined her talking if she hadn't felt it through her chest.

"The way I see it," she squeezes Peggy tight, "We can wallow in what's coming? Or we can enjoy today."

Peggy laughs. "You sound like the war's back on."

"A couple of hours ago you were saying it never ended." She shrugs against her. "So let's think about how great the sex is gonna be when it is."

Peggy tilts Angie's head so she has to look at her. It's gonna be a long hard road to forget those eyes. "If it isn't?"

"We live right next door to each other Peg. You come by for sugar and I'll declare it Armistice Day."

She laughs, and Angie laughs, and until the sun comes up the war is over.


	8. Chapter 8

Limping to the gas station on fumes is bad enough, but every time Angie and Peggy look at each other they grin and giggle.

They had sex most of the night and cuddled naked in the back of a car past dawn and it shows. Between the two of them they found exactly three hair pins so they're hair is down and two buttons are missing from Peggy's shirt and Angie's dress is so wrinkled Miriam Fry will never let her back into the hotel if she sees it.

And every ounce of makeup they were wearing has been kissed away.

Angie's sure Peggy's never looked better. Peggy says similar when she looks at Angie like she hung the moon.

She kind of wants to hold Peggy's hand, but she knows that's the kind of things the girls who call home crying every night do so instead she sits on her fingers and bites her lip whenever the car jostles and she remembers how good her night was.

They finally roll into the gas station ("exactly two miles," Peggy crows) on nothing more than fumes and prayers. While the attendant fills them up Peggy goes inside to make a phone call.

Angie takes the moment, her first bit of alone time since an assassin tried to grab her before dinner, to just be. To let all the bad stuff and the good stuff settle over her like a blanket.

A lot's happened in the span of a night and she has to figure out a way to make sen-shit.

She scoots down low and peaks carefully out the window.

A black Pontiac's rolled into the station full of no good guys in suits. It drives slow like a glacier, inching past their stolen Cadillac while the fellas inside peer real close.

As she's been doing a lot lately, she prays. This time that the Pontiac will keep on driving.

It doesn't. It's brakes creak as it comes to a stop.

All four men exit and two head inside. The other two squint as they try and see who's in the car. One stops to talk to the attendant. The other puts his hand on his hip. She can see the holstered gun.

There are, of course, options. But the option that presents itself to Angie. The one that makes the **most** sense. Is the one where she slides over into the driver's seat, wrenches the car into drive, and smacks the front end of the Cadillac into a man in a suit.

The other guy, who'd been talking to the attendant and making the poor kid sweat, shouts.

Which is a perfectly reasonable response to seeing your friend smacked with the front end of a Cadillac.

She pops the car into reverse. Goes back a good twenty feet. Glancing at the gas station she can see Peggy beating one guy with a tire iron while the other stumbles around clutching his noggin.

She guns it into drive and screeches to a halt at the door and leans on the horn. Peggy, being that she is some kind of Howling Commandos reject, slams the tire iron down once more for good measure and struts towards the door like the two fellas outside (that one guy got up real fast) aren't drawing their guns and trying to load the Cadillac full of bullet holes.

Peggy slides in and says "Move over," a little too imperiously for Angie's ego.

She ignores her, puts the Cadillac back into reverse and swings the whole car around the gas pumps and so the back end runs into the two guys with guns. They go down again. "Yeah right. I saw the way you drive."

One of the two men from inside the gas station stumbles out with gun drawn. Angie doesn't flinch at the bullets.

That earns a suspicious look from Peggy, particularly when she smoothly brings them back onto the road and sails through the light traffic like a fish in water.

"Angie, dear, do you have something to tell me?"

"What? So you're the only one who's got secrets?"

"Mine involve national security." They swerve around a milk truck. "Where exactly did you learn to drive like this?"

She glances at the side mirror. The Pontiac is coming in fast. "We should have stopped to shoot out their tires."

Peggy turns to see what the fuss is about and mutters something like "Aw hell."

She pulls her gun, stashed in the glove box, and checks the clip. "I've got four bullets and excellent aim. Do you think you can keep us steady?"

Angie is now just insulted. "I'll do you one better."

She jams her foot on the brake. Smoke blooms as the brakes lock on the tires and the whole car goes into a skid. Angie, being pretty good behind the wheel, controls the skid, spinning the car around so it's perpendicular to oncoming traffic. In particular that Pontiac.

This gives Peggy her shot.

It also, maybe, puts her in the threat of being crushed under a ton or two of American steel, but the shot set up is so golden that she really shouldn't complain.

It's just a pop pop. Then Peggy's looking at her like she's gonna say "are you quite finished" while the Pontiac veers off the road into a ditch, its two front tires popped like grapes.

Angie just grins.

####

"I'm presuming its something to do with your uncle's line of work."

Angie keeps her eyes on the road. Peggy's now directing her north and then towards Long Island. "We can skip Manhattan entirely," she said. She's also tapping her chin.

"Are you **still** involved in organized crime or was it a youthful indiscretion?"

"It's old news, English."

"I don't know about that. Besides, turnabout's fair play Angie." The way Peggy's got her tongue caught between her teeth as she grins at her has Angie wanting to pull the car over and play at Armistice Day some more.

She huffs, "Remember the cousin hit by a bus knocking over a newstand?"

Peggy does.

"It was a bank."

Peggy's a smart lady and quickly puts two and two and three together. "And you were the getaway driver."

She nods.

"Just the once or-" She absorbs the glance Angie shoots her, "Ah. So you used to rob banks."

"I was a kid." It's not a great excuse. She was sixteen, it was the Depression and she had a lot to prove to people who didn't really care. It was also **fun**.

"Sure."

"Pegs. Come on-"

She waves her off. "I was teasing Angie. While I'll admit to be surprised, I can hardly judge you for knocking over a few banks-"

"Eight."

Peggy looks like someone hit her in the face with a frying pan. "Eight banks." She shakes her head, "How did you get away with robbing eight banks?"

"Great driver?"

"Bloody hell Angie."

"And we didn't all get away." Her cousin seemed to turn to soup on impact with the bus. And the smell of rot from her brother's leg-festering from a bullet-still sits in her nose. Is gonna sit there forever maybe.

Same with his screams as a quack sawed through bone and gristle to save his life.

"I thought I was the rebel in this car for starting fights in pubs in my youth."

"Don't worry. You still throw a punch better than I do."

"What led to the end of your little 'spree?'"

"My brother, the one out west? Lost his leg. And my dad died. And it just wasn't…it's not just me being queer that my mom has a problem with."

"And you," Peggy surveys her like she's looking for scars she missed when they were stark naked. "You're all right?"

"Alive aren't I?" There's gotta be something edgy and harsh in how she says it. Something **sharp**.

Because Peggy's trying to be consolatory. "I think we never can escape our past unscathed." She's careful. Like she's in a mine field without one of those wands the boys use. "And while I have, on more than one occasion, very much wanted to, I don't think we should."

Coming out of that mouth laced with that British accent of hers Peggy's words could sound really condescending. But she's watching Angie with a kind of empathy that screams "been there and done that honey."

So Angie nods. "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger huh?"

A watery laugh, "Maybe not stronger. Wiser."

"Yeah?"

Peggy's smiling like she's got a secret. Like her own past has informed every little action she's taken right up to and including banging Angie's brains out in the back of a stolen Cadillac. "Yeah."

####

Peggy's directions aren't half bad and guide them up to a fancy estate that's all marble and glass and crazy shaped topiaries. The incredulous look she shoots Peggy has the other lady blushing.

"I'll admit Howard's choice of decore is…ostentatious."

"Please tell me he's got a statue of himself in the pond."

"How do you know about the pond?"

Places like Howard Stark's "vacation" home in Long Island **always** have ponds. And pools. And a garage full of cars that has the greasemonkey side of her positively moist.

That's where they leave their bullet riddled Cadillac. "I'll have Jarvis dispose of it later today. And see to the reiumbursement of it's owner."

"Thoughtful."

"If we want to be particular you and I are both in our current predicament becuase of Howard. So **that**," she points at the Cadillac, it's engine ticking as it cools, "is the least he can do."

This is new information, but Angie chooses to act like she's a hip gal and already knew it all. Or at least doesn't see it's worth fussing about. "So he's not guilty then? Of all the treason?" It's been the main headline in the paper for months.

Peggy frowns. "Unfortunately no. That would have made my life easier."

"And you two…"

"The war. We often worked together."

She stops. Making connections faster that an actual girl at the phone company. "Wait. Does that mean you knew Captain America?"

It does. Peggy doesn't even have to say it. Her sure steps falter and one of those cracks appears in her British armor and a whole lot inside of her wavers. Until she finally looks at Angie with one of those level looks as potent as dynamite.

"It does."

Angie thinks about saying something, but what do you say to the real life Betty Carver?

So she takes her hand in her own and squeezes and tries not to think about how she's gonna be stuck playing second fiddle to a real life American god for the rest of her life.

The door between the garage and the house opens wide and Angie is introduced to a whole new side of Tall, Dark and British. His shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbow and he's wearing an apron half covered in flour.

"Mr. Jarvis," Peggy says officiously.

He looks from Peggy to Angie to their hands and back to Peggy again. "Agent Carter. I was beginning to worry."

####

Peggy and Jarvis have a rhythm to their banter and Angie doesn't even try to intervene. She stuffs her face with fresh baked pastries and knocks back coffee made just for her ("tea thanks," Peggy says) strong enough to make her eyes cross and listens with rapt attention as they discuss missing weapons and mobsters and a giant monster thing from the Bible.

"It's some sort of secret spy agency," Peggy corrects her.

"Right, but Leviathan's a snake monster in the Bible too."

Jarvis backs her up with a nod.

"And they now know who you both are," he adds.

Peggy looks pissed, but Angie just feels a little ashamed.

She robbed eight banks in 1936 and was never caught. Being outted by some louzy spies she's never met is just ridiculous.

"We know who they are as well," Peggy says.

Jarvis is just as surprised as Angie. "We do?"

She nods. "The agent sent to capture Angie last night." She looks at Angie and her eyes are dark and dangerous. "Dottie Underwood."

"Hayseed?"

"I caught a glimpse of her hair under her mask when we fought. I presume she doesn't know she's been compromised."

"That's good right? Means we can capture her and interrogate her or something." Or turn her over to Peggy's people. Though she's getting a strong feeling Peggy's current missions is a little more off the books than its supposed to be.

Peggy and Jarvis share a look that puts rocks in Angie's belly. "Angie…" she starts.

"Don't start with the knight in shining armor garbage now English. I'm up to my garters in this now. I mean I'm the one Hayseed tried to kidnap or kill last night."

"Kidnap. As leverage."

"How are you so sure?"

"Because it's what I would have done."

She says it so easy.

Jarvis picks up the empty tray of tea and pastries and quietly leaves the room.

"Okay. And now. What's Hayseed gonna do?"

"Wait for us to return. Then she'll likely kill us both."

"But not if we stop her. Which we can because we know who she is."

"We do, but Angie we can't just waltz in. This has to be delicate."

"I can be delicate." She sounds defensive.

Peggy sighs. "I'm not saying you can't."

"So what are you saying?"

Peggy breathes in deep through her nose. She looks worn out. She often does. The whole world sits on her shoulders and pulls her down with the weight of it. Their little chats at the L&L, what happened in the car. Her. They're nothing more than respites. "The war isn't over," Peggy would remind her if she said anything.

And she doesn't.

So Peggy sits there trying to spit out words they both know Angie doesn't want to hear. "I'm saying…I suppose…that you should stay here. Safe."

"Safe."

"No one will look for your in Howard's home. And with the exception of the initial theft it's very secure."

"So I play damsel in the tower why you go off and fight the bad guys."

"I have experience-"

"I do too!"

"Robbing banks! Dealing with mobsters. I would think after what you've seen you'd realize that this is two different worlds we're speaking of Angie." She's been sitting on the couch opposite Angie and she leans back on it, arms crossed in a very final kind of way and chin jerked up like a snob. "And you are simply not equipped for mine."

As much as Angie wants to pop Peggy in the mouth or maybe flounce out of the room, steal one of those cars, and do things all on her own. She doesn't. She stands up and comes over and kneels on the floor by Peggy. She curls her hand around Peggy's knee and looks up at her and speaks real soft. Intimate. "So equip me."

Peggy closes her eyes.

Breathes in long and slow.

"You must know I want to."

"Nothing's stopping you Peggy. Nothing but your own stubborness."

Peggy doesn't agree. Frowns in a kind of way that's enough to break a heart. "People who come into my world-who even flirt with it-have a bad habit of not making it out." Her hand cups Angie's chin and she gently pulls her up so Angie's leaning over her. Holding herself up with a hand on the handrest. Peggy wants to put their foreheads together. Maybe kiss her softly.

Angie really wants her to too. But she doesn't cross those last couple of inches. "I'm not like the rest of 'em Peggy."

So Peggy crosses the distance instead. Leans up and kisses her. Words like gossamer come to mind when she presses her lips so gently to Angie's own.

"Steve wasn't either."

Angie gets…she gets sleepy. Truth be told she's been sleepy. But now it's pulling at her insistently. Tugging on her brain and body.

Her arms grow heavy. Her eyelids don't want to stay open. She droops.

Peggy stands to catch her. Soothes her with gentle hands and words.

"What-"

"You're coffee dear. I knew you'd insist on coming."

She curses Peggy as the other woman carefully spins her and lays her gently on the couch.

"I can't disagree," Peggy says. "But I can't lose you either." It's maybe the worst thing that's ever happened in Angie's whole life. Because Peggy leans down and kisses her on the cheek. "I think I might love you too much for that."

Of all the lousy, no good, romantic, stupid, wonderful things to s-


	9. Chapter 9

Angie's staring at herself in the mirror. She's sitting on a bench that cost more than a month's rent at the Griffith and staring at her reflection in a mirror with an honest to God gilded frame. Her hair's done up. Years on Broadway has her able to do a twist without thinking.

"Classy," is what the rags call it. Especially paired with all the pearls and sapphires and satin gowns.

Classy Angie Martinelli.

Only they don't call her that anymore.

See the thing is, years ago, in 1946, Angie fell in love with a girl. Not just any girl. She fell in love with a **secret agent**. A high flying daring do kind of girl you see in the pulps but never meet in real life.

And this particular girl stole Angie's heart like it was a packet of secrets smuggled out of Russia. Then she went and tried to keep Angie alive by running off by herself to fight the good fight all alone.

By the time Angie woke up, stole a coupe from Howard Stark's garage, and got back to the Griffith, Peggy Carter was dead. It was a big fire. Took half the building. She and Dottie Underwood were seen "helping" on the third floor.

Neither ever made it out.

That's what the cop told her. A guy in a suit with a limp and a crutch. "Were you close," he asked, eyes narrowing with empathy.

Angie hadn't known what to say. Because they'd been as close as two people could be, but then Peggy'd gone and left her and if you're close to someone you don't leave 'em. Even if death is knocking at your door.

You stick around.

She cried a lot after that. Losing her home, her best friend, and the only girl she'd be mushy enough to say she'd love was rough.

A week later Mr. Jarvis showed up at her mom's place with his hat in hand and asked if he could come in. "Sure, that's okay," she'd said.

And when he'd come in and sat down he'd tried to be **nice**. Tried to **console** her. "I know you and Ms. Carter were close."

She'd glared at him and he'd cleared his throat and then finally he'd told her what he'd come all the way out to South Brooklyn to tell her. "She cared about you. I think all she wanted to do was keep you safe."

"Pretty steep cost don't you think?"

"For some…for heroes like her…no cost is too steep." Which was a shame for him to say because Angie herself **wasn't** a hero. She was a lousy actress from South Brooklyn with an affinity for robbing banks and stealing cars. Sacrifice was nice and all when you were remembering soldiers on Victory Day. Not when the only girl you've ever really connected with has gone up in a barbecue of glory trying to save your stinking life.

But Mr. Jarvis had ignored how stricken and angry she'd looked and leaned in close. "And it worked," he'd said. "Any suspicions held towards you have been eradicated."

She'd said something like "Bully me," and wiped tears out of her eyes and ignored the offered handkerchief.

She'd held onto all that grief when she'd gone to the callback she'd nearly forgotten about that afternoon. Peggy Carter had been on her mind as she sang a song about loss and wept through a hokey piece of script about how "she'd never love another."

She got the job.

And the next one.

And when she got the call for Hollywood and the suits-dressed just as drabbily as those fellows who'd once tried to kill her-told her she'd have to change her name to something less "ethnic" she'd thought of Peggy again. All British and reserved and a "right bastard" if Angie was ever gonna know one.

"Angela Carter," she'd said immediately.

So now Angie's Angela Carter, and she's getting ready for a big movie premiere. Her first since that Oscar three months ago.

Someone knocks on the door. It's **Tab**. The good looking kid they said she needed on her arm for the premiere.

"People will talk," her agent had said very politely.

"They'll think you're queer," the studio suit had growled.

So she steps out into the hall of the hotel with **Tab** on her arm and smiles.

"You ready Ms. Carter?"

####

After pistols and tommy guns aimed at your head, flash bulbs and screaming fans are a piece of cake. Angie walks the red carpet real smooth.

Until she sees a face in the crowd. Standing in a throng of teens and housewives.

Peggy.

She shakes her head. Focuses on the person with the pen and pad in front of her. Someone asks when she and Tab are getting married and he blushes and she laughs.

It's a cultured laugh.

She learned that when she came to Hollywood. "This isn't the sticks," they'd said. Like Broadway and her Tony award were all done up in some barn in Pennsylvania. "It's the real thing Carter. So laugh again."

She did. She laughed. She cried. She worked with diction coaches who worked the New York out of her like wrinkles in a dress.

A fan thrusts an autograph pad in her face and she signs. Looks up and sees Peggy again, talking to a cop at the edge of the red carpet.

She shakes her head again.

"Maybe," she says to the next kid who asks if she's getting married.

At the end of the red carpet that Peggy who can't be there smiles like she heard what Angie said.

Tab takes her by the elbow, "You okay," he asks. His breath smells like cigarettes.

"Fine."

"We're almost through." He has to say it into her ear. Has to lean down. Can't let the cameras catch it. They can read lips if the want to.

America's embroiled in a non-war with the USSR and it'd be done in half a day if they put entertainment rags on the case.

They go inside and Angie see's her again, climbing the staircase. No one else must see her. No one's saying anything. No one's gasping and pointing.

"Captain America's girlfriend!"

"She's dead!"

"She went down on Angela Carter for twenty minutes and didn't even need air!"

Nothing.

Like Peggy's a ghost. Haunting Angie all alone.

Someone takes her hand and pumps it up and down like water's gonna spout out of her mouth and she has to focus again. Has to smile and be gracious.

The way to their seats has gotta take an hour. There's pause after pause. Smiles and jokes and never letting her voice get too loud. They don't like it when she's loud. "Makes you sound coarse," they say.

She'll show 'em coarse.

Tab smiles too.

And glances at her.

A lot.

Usually when she thinks she sees Peggy moving through the crowd.

When they're finally settling into their seats his voice is real low. "What's going on with you?"

"That Captain America movie they're hot to have me in."

"Betty Carver," he asks surprised. "That's what your thinking about?"

It's gotta be.

Now that she's said it is makes sense.

They want her playing a gross caricature of a woman she could have loved given time. So she's seeing her ghost.

Some kind of guilt thing.

Like a heart beatin' under floorboards.

"It's an awful script," she confesses.

"But this one's good right?" It's a western. Her obligatory one.

"Yeah." She pats his knee and smiles.

####

A quarter of the way through the movie someone starts coughing and it isn't the good kind.

The good kind is phlegm. It's something in the throat trying to get out.

This is the **fake** kind that rankles her as bad as talking while she's up on the stage.

She tries to ignore it.

Fidgets.

Bounces.

Finally she turns to tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine.

Peggy grins, hand falling away from her lips-still red as sin. The people around her are glaring at her like she's Satan but Peggy is definitely just smiling for her.

So Angie turns around and tries to watch the movie.

Up on screen she's covered in dust and chasing after Stewart Granger as he goes off to slaughter indians to save her life. They can't be together though.

They think they're brother and sister.

She'd hoot about how awful it all was but she's just had a ghost razzing her movie with coughs.

So she stares real hard at the screen. Her dress is too tight and she wonders how they got it past the censors. She's pretty sure if she squints she could see the outline of a nipple.

Behind her people grumble and there's shuffling and swishing.

When she glances back again Peggy's seat is empty.

She's not gonna say she's frantic, but Angie** does** look hurriedly around the rest of the theater-there. The ghost is standing at the exit and staring straight through Angie like she's made of glass. She gulps.

Turns back around.

Waits.

Stewart Granger's been hurt slaughtering indians and she's got his head in her lap and is stroking his hair.

"Excuse me," she mumbles to Tab.

He's confused when she has to swish past. So's the director. And the suits. And Stewart.

"Go before you come," he advises as she slides past him.

She moves quickly towards the exit, bottom of her dress in hand and head down.

No one mumbles or mutters. As bad as the film is (and it's a doozy) it's still entertaining.

The lobby is less entertaining. It's empty.

Not even an usher with a flashlight.

She thinks she hears a door shut so she heads towards the noise.

Of course. The women's restroom.

Only inside is empty. No Peggy. No one looking to relieve themselves. Not even a bathroom attendant. She walks all the way through to be sure. Even peers under the stall doors like a creep. Nothing.

Which is how she finds herself staring at herself in another mirror. She's leaning on the sink and trying to get her bearings.

It's got to be the stupid Captain America movie. It's got her thinking about a woman dead since '46. She's got her on the mind.

She turns the faucet on and stares at the water running out.

Wouldn't be good to splash her face. Her make up would run and people would talk.

She laughs.

God, she's going crazy.

She pulls water in her hands and sips it.

Completely nuts.

She sniffs.

Aw jeeze.

She's gonna cry. She can feel it.

Big crazy tears that'll get her carted off to the looney bin. She tries to laugh it off and that makes the threat of sobs even worse.

The door opens and she straights up and schools her face into something neutral. "Sorry," she immediately apologizes. "I just had a…"

"Successful film premiere by the looks of it."

Peggy smiles like she's not dead. When she steps closer her heels clack on the tile like real heels. She's dressed in a tasteful gown. Hair down. Makeup perfect.

Older. Because time isn't gonna wait around.

But **Peggy**.

A sob just bursts out of Angie and she has to cover her mouth.

"I believe," Peggy's real careful, like Angie's a skittish animal, "You once likened us to a disaster. Which makes sense. Our careers and sexuality. Disastrous."

"End of the world," Angie mutters. She's not quite sure she's existing in reality with the rest of the world.

"When I left I had hoped it would keep you safe. And I wanted…I didn't want a disaster."

"Good for you."

It must sting because Peggy winces. "But I've…I've lived a life that's more appropriate for my line of work and I've watched you be extraordinary and…"

Angie takes a step towards her. "What?"

She shrugs. "A world I can't share with you is miserable."

"Yeah, I know."

"And I'm tired of being miserable." Peggy's not the only one.

"So what then?"

It's the crooked smile. Not that she's standing in the washroom with a lookout on the door and being nervous. It's that smile.

"End the world with me Angie Martinelli?"

Anything Angie ought to feel goes right out the window.

Because there's something she's learned. Something **important**. When an opportunity presents itself you seize it.

Instead of being mad Angie kisses Peggy.

"The war over then," she asks against those lips she'd given up on years ago.

Peggy's holding her close and her hand's on Angie's cheek and it feels awfully right. "No," she kisses her again, "but if the world is gonna end in disaster I'd like to end it on my own terms."

**The End**

######

Didn't like the ending? Or you wanted more? Or you want to punch me? YOU'RE IN LUCK. A psuedo-sequel is coming. Because what if Peggy showed up in that bathroom and Angie thought her request was the biggest load of bunk she'd ever heard? And then Peggy had to spend a whole fic wooing her while engaging in a Cold War with Leviathan, battling the Winter Soldier, and driving through Europe with the top down. That'd be pretty great yeah?


End file.
